World traveler treats medical needs of impoverished

It has almost become a ritual for Diane Whitcomb of Middle Smithfield to visit a Third World country every year.

PRISCILLA MASILAMANI

It has almost become a ritual for Diane Whitcomb of Middle Smithfield to visit a Third World country every year.

It's not for vacation but for a more meaningful cause. The 60-year-old family nurse practitioner, who works at Geisinger Urgent care in Stroudsburg, has gone on nine medical mission trips in the past seven years to various countries such as Ukraine, Togo, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Haiti.

Assistance from the Brethren, the Baptist and Presbyterian Churches across Pennsylvania have taken her to these needy places around the world where she worked with the local health-care practitioners to establish clinics and to bring the best care possible to the people who otherwise might not have access.

Whitcomb and her team always traveled through fields and long stretches of dirt roads and were jammed into an open Jeep with health-care providers and medical supplies. They went to villages hidden from the mainland with no clinics or pharmacies.

Depending upon the distance between each of the villages, they visited three or more of them and held clinics where a critical need for health care exists. "The people see the van, knew we were coming and just showed up, in horse drawn carts, vehicles and tractors," said Whitcomb.

Most villages have little or no medical care and with the economic crisis rampant in many of these countries, many people cannot afford to buy medicine. Lack of proper infrastructure and remote village locations have contributed to improper health-care services. People often must pay a hefty fee for the service with no insurance or assistance. Whitcomb noticed there was no clinic in any of the villages she visited, so the medical team offered its services in tents, vans and in churches.

The clinics were begun with a word of prayer, singing and a small devotion ending with a prayer for their needs. "Religion was not force-fed to them. It was their choice," said Whitcomb. "People who wished to be not prayed for were respected."

On her recent visit to Ukraine, Whitcomb worked with Miriam Wheeler, an American missionary who has been serving Ukrainians for 15 years. With her help and that of other government health-care providers, they visited remote villages and held clinics that Whitcomb said usually are served monthly or once in any long span of time up to six months.

While in Ukraine, Whitcomb visited homes of the people in the villages to gain a better understanding of the best way to help them care for themselves and their families.

"Almost all villages had electricity but no running water. If I tell someone to wash the infected wound on the leg every day, they are not going to do that because they would have to walk the 200 yards to the well to draw water and clean them," said Whitcomb. "So, I tell them to use water to wash their hands instead, every time before they change their bandages."

At all places, Whitcomb related health care to their life and environment rather than teaching them the American way of doing things. "They were much more open to me because I was willing to go into their houses," said Whitcomb, who noticed that the Ukrainian people need to feel connected.

Whitcomb and her team always carried medical literature in the native language of the countries they visit. They leave those brochures in the

hands of the local health-care providers or midwives and let

them teach their own people about making their own lives better.

"In Togo, we had to tell them that the medicines we dispense are not magic; because black magic and witch doctors are abundant in Togo, we tell them that the pills we give are not white magic," said Whitcomb, who always had to explain relative to that culture. Her team needed a translator everywhere they visited.

She hails those translators for handling language and cultural issues well for effective care. "When we put them on antibiotics in Togo, we had to teach them to not share it with their family, because the people pass on a day's worth of the dosage to each of their family members, since they do not have access or the money to them," said Whitcomb.

Across the spectrum, Whitcomb had seen pretty much the same health issues of hypertension, diabetes and asthma. Whitcomb noticed that a lot of villagers in Ukraine with a stroke had no medication to regulate blood pressure. She treated malaria in all the places she visited except Ukraine. "A child who came in with a fever almost always is positive for malaria," said Whitcomb. "It's heartbreaking to see that the family does not have the means to either lower the temperature or antibiotics to cure."

Whitcomb uses monetary donations she receives here to buy antibiotics in the big cities in countries such as Togo and Tanzania. She is very cautious about buying medications there for safety reasons, because of the lack of proper health inspection. Antibiotics for malaria are the only ones bought overseas.

In more than four trips to Togo, Whitcomb and her team had taken around 500 pairs of eyeglasses to be distributed to children. "Kids don't do well in school because they couldn't see the chalkboard clearly," said Whitcomb, who always left glasses with the school master or the nurse at the village clinic where people could come, try them on and choose the ones that they need. "They have no way of having their eyes checked or an eye exam unless they go into big cities which they can't afford to." She also left eye charts she got from the United States.

Whitcomb considers unclean drinking water to be the major health problem in many African countries she visited, and said drilling a well in those villages would radically change the health of the people. "People use water from contaminated rivers. So, we teach them to boil the water before use but I doubt if they would because fuel is very expensive in those places," she said.

Although she treats children with intestinal worms, she is afraid that unless they get into proper hygienic methods, the infestation is likely to continue. Her team to Haiti took with them a number of "buckets" with holes drilled in them. After they got there, they attached spigots to them with glue so that they Haitians would be able to get clean drinking water when the water truck came into their places.

She knows when she leaves that country, the people again might not have access to medicines, Whitcomb looks into the herbal remedies they use to ward off a few health conditions and so encourages them to keep using them if she finds them to be medically safe. "It might be another five or six months before a physician visits them again or they have to wait before one person goes into the big village nearby to buy everybody's medication," said Whitcomb.

She visits despite facing dangers. In Tanzania, she had a Masai warrior circle her tent the entire night while she slept on the ground on a mat, to protect her from wild animals.

In Burkina Faso, her team was not allowed outside the compound because a certain religious group opposed their visit. In Haiti, they always feared being robbed and so were not allowed to roam alone. To stay healthy, they always had to carry their own bottled drinking water and sometimes had to stay away from where the locals lived, such as the tent cities from Haiti ravaged by the 2010 earthquake where residents were prone to cholera because of unhygienic living and overcrowding.

Whitcomb said her trips "are exhausting but exhilarating, frustrating but joyful," and calls it a privilege to be called to witness God in these places. "I've never had been in a situation where people felt anything but appreciation and thankfulness for us." said Whitcomb, who always pays for her trips, but individuals in various churches have been her biggest donors for buying medicines and supplies.

Every trip teaches her a better way to provide for the needs of the people. During her last trip to Togo, she realized that dispensing cough medicines like Tylenol is very arduous because the Togolese do not have teaspoons and tablespoons for dosage. So, for her next trip to Togo, she is thinking about taking Tylenol Chewables, which also are safe for children.